Interface Message Processor

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Leonard Kleinrock and the first IMP. Taken from http://www.lk.cs.ucla.edu/personal_history.html

The Interface Message Processor (IMP) was the packet-switching node used to connect computers to the original ARPANET in the late 1960s and 1970s. To connect to the ARPANET, host computers communicated with IMPs using a special high-speed bit-serial interface. The IMP itself was a Honeywell DDP-516 mini-computer with special-purpose interfaces and software.

IMPs are the ancestor of modern Internet routers.

References

• [A Technical History of the ARPANET with photos of IMP]
• [IMP history with photo of developers]
• Internet STD 39, a.k.a. Bolt, Beranek and Newman Report 1822, "Specification for the Interconnection of a Host and an IMP".

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